GP30! CHAPLAIN'S SERMON FOR BLESSED GERARD

The Feast of Blessed Gerard this year marks the 30th Anniversary of the reestablishment of the Grand Priory of England in 1993.

The Mass, celebrated in the Church of the Assumption and St Gregory Warwick Street, was presided over by the fourth Grand Prior since the restoration, and 58th since our foundation, Fra' Max Rumney.

Before the Mass the General Assembly of the Grand Priory was held in choir, of which all members of the Order in Britain now form part.  The 30th anniversary Medal of Merit was established at the end of the Assembly, and bestowed upon, initially, all current members of the Priory. It will henceforth be awarded annually on the Feast of Blessed Adrian Fortescue, patron of the Priory, to volunteers and benefactors of the Order in Britain whose contribution is noteworthy.

During Holy Mass, Benedict and Hannah Jennings made the Promise of Obedience. Please pray for them.

The celebrant and preacher was our Chaplain, Monsignor John Armitage. We are grateful to him for the text of this sermon. 

“Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more” (Romans 5:29)  When we see the abundance of sin and evil in our world, we have to remind ourselves of this truth of our faith, for it is a truth of faith needed in each generation to guide humanity through the “abundance of sin” found in every age. The sense of powerless that comes in the face of man’s inhumanity to man was described by the Roman historian Livy in 56 bc. “Here are the questions to which I should like every reader to give their close attention: what life and morals were like; what men and what policies, in peace and in war, territory was established and enlarged. Then let him note how, with the gradual relaxation of discipline, morals first subsided, as it were, then sank lower and lower, and finally began the downward plunge which has brought us to our present time, when we can endure neither our vices nor their cure.” amid such turmoil, “The Word became flesh and lived among us”.  

As the world today faces the challenges of war and peace our awareness that we can “can endure neither our vices not their cure” is either a recipe for despair, or a public witness, to the truth of our faith that “Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.”

The suffering of the people of Ukraine, the Holy Land and the many countries trapped in the grip of violence, injustice and poverty, witness to a seemingly never-ending story of violence and despair. The hymn “Abide with me”, describes the turmoil of “change and decay”, but most importantly gives the remedy! “O thou who changest not, abide with me.” Let us not be disheartened by the challenges that face the world, for the suffering of humanity, unlocks the wellspring of God’s Mercy, “which can make even the driest land become a garden, can restore life to dry bones (cf. Ez 37:1-14). So let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, and make justice and peace flourish.”

This mercy is lived out each day as the Church seeks to witness to the teaching of the “Good News” that sets people free and the service of God’s people, especially the poor and the sick.  

The talk of the Order’s ambassador to the Palestinian Authority last Friday, on the work of the Holy Family Hospital in Bethlehem, expressed in the most powerful way the continuation of a work of the Order inspired by our Catholic faith and the call to serve the sick and poor. The Holy Family Hospital has a direct link to the first hospital in Jerusalem set up by Blessed Gerard and which continues to this day to be open to all, regardless of faith or nationality. In these troubled times may our prayerful support and generosity to our hospital be great, as our brothers and sisters face a turmoil as great as any in the time of Blessed Gerard.  

So where is the “abundance of grace” which will overcome the abundance of sin in our time?  It is, where it has always been, in the hearts of faithful men and women who recognise that despite the change and decay, God always abides with his people for “The Word became flesh and lived among us”. New life does not come about by a change in structures, but by the renewal of the human heart for “You renew the Church in every age by raising up men and women outstanding in holiness, living witnesses of your unchanging love. They inspire us by their heroic lives and help us by the constant prayers to be the living sign of your saving power.”

Today we also celebrate our fellow countryman, St Edward the Confessor, who lived through the “change and decay” of his times. His simple piety, the unaffected generosity of his nature, enabled him to serve the men and women about him, by easing their burdens, relieving their necessities, and confirming them in their allegiance to the faith.  Mgr. Knox reflected that “The Conqueror, who diverted the stream of history, went to his grave disappointed, and lies there a historical memory. The Confessor, whose ambitions could be satisfied by finding a poor man his dinner, saw no corruption in death, and lives the patron of his fellow countrymen." Mgr. Ronald Knox

Like all the saints we celebrate this month, St Therese, St Bruno, St John Leonardi, their lives were shaped by the knowledge that the one who never changes would always abide with them. This is a definition of holiness, where ordinary men and women who do extra ordinary things because they believe, like Our Lady, that “the promises made them by the Lord would be fulfilled.”  

In the aftermath of the reformation, Pope Paul V asked St John Leonardi to reflect upon the problems facing the Church of their time. “Those who want to work for moral reform in the world must seek the glory of God before all else. If at first glance they appear difficult, compare them with the magnitude of the situation. Then they will seem very easy indeed. Great works are accomplished by great men and women, and great women and men should be involved in great works.”  

The truth is we know we have to change, as St John Henry Newman reminds us for “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often”.  We are troubled in our conscience by our cowardice, our complacency, our lack of courage.  We feel guilty that we don’t do more, and this is where we stop.  Perfection simply means becoming the person God has created me to be! Be cannot change structures unless we first change our selves. We give up what we are now, with the help of God’s grace, for what we can become.   

As we celebrate the great works of Blessed Gerard, if they are to be more than the history of the past, the Church calls, challenges, even demands each one of us today, to build an Order of Great works fit for our times, as we defend the Church, by our service of the sick and poor.  Great works are accomplished only by great men and women, and great women and men should be involved in great works, and if at first glance our structural challenges appear difficult, compare them with the magnitude of the situation we face as servants of Gods Mercy to our fallen world, then the “minor issues” we face will seem very easy indeed.

Gerard teaches us by his life that the changes we all long for in our troubled world, can only begin with the human heart, and this comes about by humility which understands that all I have is a gift of God, and the gift grows only by sharing it with others.  The consequence of this gift is a greatness of the spirit that we know as nobility of heart. It is a depth of generosity, at the very centre of who we are, that we willingly share wight those most in need. I am what I share, and I share what I have received for a loving God.

It is holiness alone that renews and changes the world, the Church and the Order, and in our founder, we hear why. He was called "the humblest man in the East, the servant of the poor, and kind to strangers. His appearance was not impressive, but it was a noble heart that made him conspicuous.”  On this his feast day, let us renew our vows and promises, made at our profession and when we joined the Order. Much is to be done, as in our time as we commit ourselves once again to be instruments of grace to overcome the evil and suffering of our world. Inspired by Gerard’s humility and nobility of Heart, may we walk in his footsteps as witnesses of hope, as great men and women who have committed themselves to the great works of our beloved Order, for “Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more!”

Blessed Gerard, pray for us.

Grand Priory of England - ad multos annos! 

SAINT JOSEPH - A MEDITATION

This wonderful meditation upon Saint Joseph was preached at the August day of Recollection by Fr Paul Keane, Chaplain of the University of Cambridge, priest of Brentwood Diocese, and recently a Magistral Chaplain of our Order. We are very grateful to him for these spiritual insights.

From the Holy Family and St Catherine by Bordoni

Devotion to St Joseph 

AMDG

I was not meant to be here. Nor were the professed knights. This weekend we were to be on retreat at Farnborough Abbey. But the abbey became unavailable and, instead, we shall make the retreat in October. But with every loss there is a gain. We can be here. However, let me bring something of Farnborough to Golden Square. Not its beautiful chapel or the tomb of Emperor Napoleon III but St Joseph.

Even if we know Farnborough, we may not immediately associate it with the spouse of Our Lady, but the national shrine of St Joseph is at the abbey. If any of us did not know there was a national shrine of St Joseph, you have not failed your English Catholic proficiency test. Its existence has been a well-kept secret since it was originally established at Mill Hill in 1866 by Fr Herbert Vaughan, the future Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. He sought and received from Blessed Pope Pius IX permission for a canonical coronation of a statue of St Joseph.

Receiving the pope’s specific blessing for the crowning of images of Our Lady began in the early seventeenth century. Such coronations were extended to only one other saint - St Joseph - in the late eighteen century. It began with the crowing of his image at Kalisz, in central Poland, in 1796. Sadly, Mill Hill was closed and sold in 2006 but, thankfully, it was arranged that the crowned statue of St Joseph and its surrounding shrine should go to Farnborough. This was apt because the foundress of the abbey, Empress Eugene, the wife of Napoleon III, gave a donation to help found the St Joseph’s Society for Foreign Missions, for which Mill Hill was built. In brief, we have had a national shrine to St Joseph since 1866. Its crowned statue is now at Farnborough. We may not be at the abbey but for this first talk, in Golden Square, let us spend time with St Joseph.

To go to Joseph is something St Teresa of Avila would heartily support. In her autobiography she wrote of him: ‘I am quite amazed when I consider the great favours our Lord has shown me through the intercession of [St Joseph], and the many dangers both of body and soul from which he has delivered me. It seems that to other saints our Lord has given power to succour us in only one kind of necessity; but this glorious saint, I know by my experience, assists us in all kinds of necessities; hence our Lord, it appears, wishes us to understand that as He was obedient to him when on earth, so now in Heaven He grants him whatever he asks’ (Chapter 5).

As Catholics, we have customs and expressions that others may find odd. For example, if you feel crowded in a restaurant just say Grace before you eat and make the sign of the cross. You will find that your neighbouring diners will promptly edge away. And whilst on that, experience teaches that however sure you are that the waiter or waitress has brought everything to the table, the moment you begin Grace, they will bring over a forgotten condiment or begin pouring your wine. Either way, they freeze in shock or are blithely unaware of your muttered prayer, while we end up feeling embarrassed as if caught out. But say Grace we should because we should never eat the fruits of the earth and sea causally and ungratefully.

A Catholic phrase that we use is ‘I have a devotion to’ followed by some saint’s name or prayer, such as the rosary. No one else uses the word ‘devotion’ so casually. And devotion is a strong word. It implies a wholehearted adherence to a person or thing. It makes me think of Helena’s passion for Demetrius in A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Helena says to him:

‘I am your spaniel, and, Demetrius,

The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.

Use me but as your spaniel—spurn me, strike me, 

Neglect me, lose me. 

Only give me leave, 

Unworthy as I am, to follow you.’ (Act II, Sc. I).

Now, such sentiments we could judge as a little over the top. And the thing about devotion, within Catholic theology, is that it is not first a matter of our emotions but a choice of our will. To be exact, devotion is a virtue of religion when we choose to give God what is His by right – such as giving thanks before we eat. Devotion is an act of the will, a choice to serve our Creator. In fact, any real act of prayer or service comes from devotion.

Now, at the same time, ‘devotions’ has become the word we use for pious practices or certain prayers which can be ways of focusing our hearts, our minds, our wills that they bring us closer to God. Some devotions will work for some, others for others. I love the Stations of the Cross. I know clergy who do not. Some cling to the rosary; others are left cold.

St Teresa, however, would have us all become devoted to St Joseph. She says in her autobiography: ‘I have never known anyone who was truly devoted to [St Joseph], who performed particular devotions in his honour that did not advance more in virtue, for he assists in a special manner those souls who recommend themselves to him.’

St Teresa was ahead of the field. Popular devotion to St Joseph had been slow to develop. It was only from 1479 that a feast day was kept for him in Rome. Perhaps certain apocryphal texts were to blame for this. In the first centuries of the Church, there was a desire to know more about Jesus’ childhood years than the Gospels recalled. What was His life like as he grew up as he grew up in Nazareth? So fictional accounts appeared, which though the Church taught were untrue, became popular. Perhaps, the most famous is the Gospel of Thomas where, for example, the child Jesus struck dead a fellow child who accidentally hit Him. In this apocryphal Gospel St Joseph is depicted as a bad carpenter – after all, who was St Joseph to teach the Son of God? - and Jesus must intervene. For example, when Joseph cuts a plank too short for furniture, Our Lord stretches it to the right length. In many ways, for a long time, Joseph was reduced in the popular imagination to a pretend husband, and even more pretend father.

Yes, many who have gone before us, thought he was not a real man because his marriage was not consummated and he was not the biological father of Jesus. Yet, St Augustine, in one of his sermons, says of St Joseph, ‘He was so much more truly the father as he was virginally the father’ (51.26). How is this so? Augustine thinks of Joseph as having adopted Jesus and when we adopt, we are saying ‘Yes’ to a child, who, in some way, we have come to know unlike most other parents who when they become parents – that is, create a new life – have not chosen a particular child who they have come to know. They must wait nine months and more to see what sort of child they have conceived. Therefore, Augustine says, the father who adopts has chosen the child with his heart not simply created him from his loins.

It is perhaps easy for us to see Our Lady as a two-dimensional figure. a character in salvation history whose lines were written for her. We forget that she did not have to say, ‘Thy will be done.’ She was free to say, ‘No,’ however much that would have violated her devotion to God. If we reduce Mary, how much more so can we do it to the one to whom she was espoused. If we do that, however, we lose St Joseph’s own example of devotion. He chose Jesus.

Having discovered his espoused was pregnant and knowing that he was not the father, Joseph planned to divorce Mary quietly. But, in a dream, an angel appears to him and says, ‘Joseph, Son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’ (Matthew 1.20b-21).

What is most important here is that Joseph will be the one who names him. Not think of the name. A name that means the one who saves us from our sins was beyond the expectations of any Jew. They knew God as one who saved Israel by removing sinners. Now, however, sinners themselves will be saved. No, coming up with the name would be beyond any Jew, however faithful. But Joseph’s role is to declare what the name is. This is the action of a father and, in law, one who adopts is no less of a father than one who creates. The immediate significance of this is that, through Joseph, by adoption, Jesus is of the House of David.

Being Irish, I tend to say a person’s name quite often in conversation. A Celtic way of connection. But any of us, when we love someone, delight in saying the person’s name frequently. As God says in Isaiah: ‘I have called you by your name; you are mine’ (43.1). My parents knew who my best friend of the time was because their name would appear frequently in my conversation. And when we fall in love, but have not shared that love, we can find ourselves pausing after we have said the beloved’s name, fearful that we have given ourselves away. Timothy Radcliffe recalls that a child of four once said, ‘You can tell someone loves you by the way they say your name, because if they love you, your name is safe in their mouth.’

However, too frequently, we are a child in love with the sound of our own name. But Joseph taught us a name we can rely on. Only because of Joseph, can I call out to my saviour. Only because of him, can I say, ‘Jesus.’ It is why the thief could even ask on the cross, ‘Jesus, remember me’ (Luke 23.42). When we know someone’s name, we can draw them to us,make a claim on them. And Joseph can rightly claim that he helped to save us. This is why St Bernadine of Siena, the fifteen-century Franciscan wrote: ‘It is beyond doubt that Christ did not deny to Joseph in heaven that intimacy, respect, and high honour which he showed him as to a father during his own human life, but rather completed and perfected it.’ No wonder we can crown St Joseph.

When the English martyr, St Ralph Sherwin, was executed at Tyburn, his final words were, ‘Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus!’ That is ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, be for me Jesus.’ In the porch of the church of my home parish, there is a framed document from about a hundred years ago, promising every parishioner a plenary indulgence should they, in their final hours, have the name of the Lord on their dying lips.

Every year, on 3 January, we celebrate the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. As the Collect or Opening Prayer for the Mass of that day says: ‘Give your people the mercy they implore, so that all may know that there is no other name to be invoked but the Name of your Only Begotten Son.’ There is no other name to be invoked because as the angel said to Joseph: ‘You must name Him Jesus, because He is the one who is to save His people from their sins.’

We do not want to say the Lord’s name casually, which is why we often refer to Him as ‘the Lord.’ And we certainly do not want to say His name as an expletive. But I, quite purposefully, say the Lord’s name in my preaching and when talking about Him. Because saying the name of Jesus makes Him present among us: ‘For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them’ (Matthew 18:20). You and I will transform moments and spaces should we allow ourselves to bring the name of Jesus into conversation. His name is not one to be kept hidden – the name of Jesus saves. In the earliest days of the Church, when a lame man asked St Peter for some money, the Apostle replied: ‘I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk’ (Acts 3.6). We need that freshness, that excitement at the name of Jesus.

Perhaps the most moving words concerning Joseph as the father of Jesus are said by Mary in Luke’s Gospel. On finding the missing twelve-year-old in the Temple, His mother says, ‘Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously’ (2.48b). At one level, Jesus distances Himself from Joseph. Mary has placed Joseph at the head of her statement but her son responds, ‘How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?’ (2.49). This is understandable. Jesus’ mission is to do God the Father, his Father in Heaven’s will. At the same time, however, Mary reveals the significance of Joseph in Jesus’ life and, as Luke recounts, after this incident Jesus returns to Nazareth and is obedient to both. Joseph is fathering Jesus, helping to raise the child into the man.

For each one of us, in Joseph’s devotion to God, we have a model for ourselves – men and women. However, for us men, whatever our state of life, Joseph can be a particular example. I have just returned from Ireland after a two-week holiday on the west coast. I was there during the Feast of Our Lady of Knock, that silent apparition, which included the appearance of St Joseph. On the day, I concelebrated Mass in the parish church of Lisdoonvarna in Co Clare. The priest considered each aspect of the apparition and told us men that in a time where the qualities of masculinity were questioned St Joseph was an example to us and that we should ‘man up.’ I am not sure if that language would work in Cambridge but, of course, he was right in this way: Jesus needed Joseph as a father not first because He lived in a socially conservative time – Christ was happy to eschew social conventions – but because He needed a man in his life as He grew up. Joseph reminds us that fatherhood is something essential, which each man can exercise as a father, a professed knight, or a priest. We should look to Joseph and seek his prayers. May men may be able to flourish as men.

In Room 30 of the National Gallery is a marvellous Counter-Reformation picture by the seventeenth-century Spaniard Murillo. He painted it at the very end of his life while working for the Capuchins in Cadiz, where, it is said, a fall from scaffolding led to his death some months later. This painting, therefore, is a consummation of his career. Known as the Pedroso Murillo it depicts at the top God the Father, holding a globe and blessing. He is surrounded by angels. Below Him is the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. Then we meet Christ - perhaps as a four-year old child. His face forms the centre point of the picture. He stands on a carved stone. It looks a bit like an altar. His right hand is held by Mary, who kneels on one knee looking adoringly at Him. His left hand is placed on the palm of a kneeling Joseph. Together Mary and Joseph steady ‘their’ child. St Joseph looks at us, inviting us to approach. The painting’s title is ‘The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities.’

Balthasar Boehm, an Augustinian preacher of Eichstadt in the sixteenth century wrote: ‘Three persons possess the one Jesus as their son: God the Father sent the Divinity of the Son from Heaven; the virgin mother Mary contributed His holy body; and venerable Joseph supported his noble humanity by the work of his hands. That is, so to speak, the all-blessed new trinity which has appeared on this earth – Jesus as son, Mary as mother, and Joseph as father.’ I was in the Vendee at the beginning of the summer holiday, staying with friends whose first born, Ambroise, is my godson. We often went to the beach and he liked nothing better than to have his hands held above his head so that he could stand among the waves as they landed on the shore. If it was not his father holding him, he was very happy for me to do so. Joseph was not Jesus’ father and yet Jesus was fathered by him. We can do the same. Hold Jesus steady in our lives and the lives of others.

As the Holy Spirit of the Heavenly Trinity is more likely to be forgotten, so St Joseph can be overlooked. However, we can let him help us to approach the Lord. If we choose to be devoted to God as he was, we who, in faith and virtue, can be just like Joseph, we can be as close to Jesus as he is. In the earthly Holy Trinity, Joseph is us.

I mentioned that the first image of St Joseph to be canonically crowned was at Kalisz in Poland. Well, before and during the Second World War, the concentration camp at Dachau, was where the Nazis tended to imprison ministers of religion – both Protestant and Catholic. Among them it is estimated that 1,773 Polish priests and several bishops were imprisoned there. 868 of them were murdered.

As the impending defeat of Germany became more and more apparent in April 1945, the head of the camp ordered its destruction by fire and the killing of all its prisoners. Suspecting the intentions of the Nazi officer, the priests of the camp, many of whom were from the regions around Kalisz, began a novena imploring the protection of St Joseph. The novena ended just a few days before 29 April, the day on which the massacre was to take place. The American army planned to take control of the camp on 30 April – one day too late.

But as Providence would have it, without knowing the orders of the Nazi camp commander, a small group of American soldiers was sent out to scout the camp a day earlier than planned, exactly three hours before the planned destruction of the camp. One of the Polish priests later recounted: ‘The SS officers quickly surrendered when they saw the American soldiers because they thought it was a larger force from the U.S. Army. After the camp was liberated, everyone was convinced it was St. Joseph of Kalisz who saved us. We promised then that we would spread the devotion to St. Joseph of Kalisz. We had discovered that St. Joseph could save us just as he saved Baby Jesus while running away from King Herod to Egypt.’

After the war, the Polish Bishops’ Conference proclaimed April 29 as the National Day of Martyrdom for Polish Clergy under the Nazi and communist regimes. The hundreds of priests who survived Dachau continued to make pilgrimages to the shrine each year on this date to give thanks until their deaths. The last priest died in 2013. He was a hundred years old.

In our world of great difficulties, where God is often forgotten or dismissed, we need Joseph – for his example, his guidance, his prayers. As Pharoah said many thousands of years ago to the sons of the Patriarch Isaac: ‘Go to Joseph’ (Genesis 41.55).

Saint Joseph, pray for us

Our Lady of Philermo, pray for us

Blessed Gerard, pray for us